The silence that follows is thick, suffocating.
Niko’s eyes narrow, the fury simmering there shifting into something darker, more dangerous. His voice drops low, steady, almost calm—but it strikes harder than his shouting ever could.
“You’re right,” he says. “Iamobsessed with you.”
The breath snags in my throat.
“I have been since the first time I saw your face at that clinic,” he continues, his gaze locked on me like a predator that’s finally stopped pretending it wasn’t hunting. “Desperate. Shaking. Begging someone—anyone—to believe you.” He steps closer, his shadow swallowing me whole. “That night, somethingbroke in me. Or maybe it woke up. And I knew—I would never be able to let you go.”
The room seems to shrink around us, the air burning hot, unsteady.
“My obsession,” he says, the word rolling off his tongue like a vow and a curse at once, “is why I agreed to marry you so easily. Because it felt like a win. A claim. Something I could take and keep before the world swallowed you alive.”
His chest rises and falls, his breathing ragged, though his voice never wavers.
“So yes, Noelle. I’m going to protect you with my life. Even if you don’t believe it. Even if protecting you destroys me. Even if it ruins us both.”
I fling the gun out of my hands, and it clatters to the floor with a cracking sound. My chest rises and falls in quick bursts as I stalk toward him. If he wants to destroy me, then let him. If obsession is all he has to offer, I’ll take it and burn with it.
I seize his wrist before he can react, dragging his hand down my body, over my stomach, lower—until his palm presses against the aching heat of my pussy.
The words fall out of me like a command, shaky but sharp. “Ruin me, Niko. You’re my husband now—so do it.”
For a second, shock flashes in his eyes. He doesn’t breathe, doesn’t blink. Then something in him snaps. His fingers curl hard against me, and the sound he makes is raw and guttural, scraping straight through me.
His arm clamps around my waist, crushing me to his chest. The world tilts, spins—my feet leave the ground. He lifts me like I weigh nothing, like I’m already his possession, his burden, his prize.
Then he throws me down onto the bed. The mattress groans in protest, springs squealing as I bounce once before sinking under his weight. His shadow swallows me whole.
The look in his eyes steals the air from my lungs—shocked still, yes, but devoured by hunger. The kind of hunger that doesn’t ask. The kind that takes.
In one rough yank, he tears my pajamas down my legs. Cool air rushes over my bare skin, and before I can even gasp, his hands are circling my ankles. He drags me to the edge of the bed like I’m nothing but prey caught in a predator’s grip.
“Spread for me,” he growls. But he doesn’t wait—he pries my legs apart himself, forcing me open, leaving me utterly bare under his burning stare.
Heat surges up my throat, a flush so deep it almost hurts. My instinct is to close my thighs, to hide, but he’s stronger. So much stronger.
“So beautiful,” he grunts, voice low and hoarse, almost reverent. “So fucking beautiful.”
His head lowers before I can think, before I can plead—or resist. His mouth is on me, hot and wet, his tongue stroking through my folds with devastating precision. I cry out, my back arching violently off the mattress.
It isn’t just his tongue—his fingers slide into me, two at once, stretching me open as if he’s been starving for this. His mouth and his hand work together, relentless, merciless, drawing sounds from me I don’t recognize as my own.
Every lick, every thrust of his fingers drags me closer to the edge. I claw at the sheets, at his hair, at anything I can reach, but he pins me down with the weight of his grip. He doesn’t stop when I beg, doesn’t stop when I whimper. He pushes me higher, wringing every ounce of control from me until I’m writhing beneath him, broken open by his mouth.
My climax tears through me, leaving me trembling, but he doesn’t stop. He keeps licking, sucking, thrusting his fingers into me until I’m sobbing from the overstimulation, my thighs shaking uncontrollably.
“Please,” I gasp, pushing weakly at his head, though I don’t even know if I’m begging him to stop or to take me harder.
He finally lifts his head, his mouth slick with me, his eyes wild and ravenous. He wipes his lips with the back of his hand, then grips my waist in both hands.
Before I can blink, he hauls me up like I weigh nothing, flipping me onto my stomach. My cheek slams into the sheets, my breath rushing out. His hand presses between my shoulder blades, pinning me down.
“You wanted me to ruin you,” he growls against my ear. “Then take it.”
I feel the blunt heat of him at my entrance—thick, hard, merciless. My body is still pulsing from orgasm when he thrusts inside me in one brutal stroke.
I scream into the pillow, every nerve in my body lighting up at once. He doesn’t give me a chance to adjust. He pounds into me, hard and deep, the bed frame groaning with every violent snap of his hips.
